A variety of systems have been proposed for draining surgical wounds. The efficacy of such systems has been limited, however, especially for larger surgical spaces or those in which certain characteristics, such as motion or shape, or certain physiological characteristics, such as lymphatic drainage or low protein exist. Seroma is a frequent complication following surgery, and can occur when a large number of capillaries have been severed, allowing plasma to leak from the blood and lymphatic circulation. Surgical wounds that can lead to seroma formation include wounds resulting from surgery involving an abdominal flap, such as abdominoplasty surgery, breast reconstruction surgery, panniculectomy, and ventral hernia repair.
Available surgical drain devices suffer from several deficiencies, particularly when applied following abdominal flap surgery. They fail to drain fluid adequately, are prone to clogging, and fail to promote tissue adhesion within the wound. Thus, there remains a need to develop improved treatments for surgical wounds. The need is particularly acute in abdominal surgery, such as for the prevention and treatment of seromas, but also for any surgical wound predisposed to conditions of excess fluid drainage or tissue motion, or benefitting from tissue adhesion needs, such as pressure ulcers or wounds resulting from a tissue harvesting procedure.